CoreTech Blog

If you want to minimize costs, being proactive can go a long way toward this goal. Your business’ technology is one such area where proactive maintenance can allow your company to save countless dollars and hours of downtime. If you haven’t implemented a proactive maintenance platform yet, then you might be putting your company at risk.

How much time does your staff spend actually doing work compared to simply communicating about work? There’s a big difference, primarily in terms of making you money versus costing you money. Truth be told, employees spend nearly 80 percent of their time either in meetings, on the phone, or responding to emails. By finding ways for your team to communicate more efficiently, they will effectively spend less time yapping and more time making you money.

One of the most popular methods of online hacking attacks involves what’s called a brute force attack. This is when a hacker overwhelms a login system with multiple attempts until the hacker is able to log in and access the system. They are dangerous attacks that could expose not just sensitive information, but also leave you vulnerable to ongoing hacks.

What Brute Force Attacks Are
Basically, you can imagine a brute force attack as a method which involves the rapid input of passwords and usernames in succession. They’re designed to crack encrypted data by finding a usable password. Most brute force hacking attacks are performed by an algorithm and can input a ridiculous amount of credentials every second. The reasoning behind the name, “brute force,” is due to the brutal assault on the system, rather than taking a more discreet or intellectual path to hack the system. There are many different types of brute force attacks, but one of the most popular ones is the dictionary attack, in which passwords are generated with a dictionary, using popular words, in order to access the system.

Why They’re Dangerous
According to a McAfee Security Report from 2015, brute force attacks account for about 25 percent of all online hacks, second only to Denial of Service attacks. One of the reasons why they’re so popular is that they can be used as a straightforward way to infiltrate privileged accounts and steal sensitive information. These attacks are typically used to access accounts and steal credentials like credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, and other data that could be used for financial gain.

Furthermore, brute force attacks can be used to install what’s called a rootkit on a device, or turn a PC into a bot. Most often, brute force attacks will be seen as a jumping-off point for other types of threats to terrorize the targeted machine.

What You Can Do
Having a security solution put into place that can lock users out based on IP location or failed login attempts can be a great way to protect against brute force attacks. However, both of these methods can be bypassed if the hacker is using a botnet. Since the botnet consists of several infected computers from all over the world, they will have different IP addresses and be identified as individual users, rendering the aforementioned security practices moot.

Another useful technology to have to protect against brute force attacks is two-factor authentication. By providing another layer of security, in addition to the required password, brute force attacks will be rendered useless. Without the secondary credential that gets sent to a smartphone or email address, any attempts to brute force an account with a password will be pointless. This is why it’s always recommended that you use two-factor authentication.

Your business should be prepared to handle all types of online threats, especially those that can lead to more dangerous or destructive results. CoreTech can provide your organization with security solutions that are designed to maximize your network’s protection against brute force attacks, and other online threats that could have an impact on your business’s operations.

To learn more about what we can do for your company, give us a call at (270) 282-4926.

Your business relies on several software solutions that are designed to help your team be as productive as possible throughout the workday. In order to use these pieces of software, users often need to have a software license or an agreement with the developers. Without these software licenses, the legitimacy of the software is questioned and your team loses valuable time to be productive.

Risks Involved with Renewing Software Licenses
It’s important that all businesses have a solid plan to approach software licensing issues. This means taking an accurate assessment of the risks that are involved with managing software license problems. Here are three of the biggest culprits:

• Downtime: One of the most immediate issues associated with software licenses is that they can run out at any given moment, especially if you don’t take the initiative to renew them before they expire. Imagine this scenario: your team is working full-throttle to finish a project, but then the software is made unavailable because it’s no longer licensed. If this happens, your team could lose precious momentum while waiting for IT to resolve the issue. This wasted time translates to downtime, which has a negative effect on any strict budget.
• Shadow IT: In the above scenario, let’s say that your team doesn’t want to wait for IT to resolve the issue. This may cause them to look into alternative solutions that may not be approved by management. This is what’s known as shadow IT; solutions that are implemented without the proper oversight. When this happens, infrastructures could be put at risk of being compromised, while ignoring software licensing requirements.
• Legal issues: Employees may get the idea that they can find a illegal copy of the needed software online at a cheaper price (or free). While your employees may only be trying to help, their intentions are irrelevant, primarily because if they download a “discounted” or “free” version of a particular software on the Internet, it may not come from a legitimate source. In other words, you run the risk of your employees resolving the issue in a potentially illegal way. If your business is found to have a pirated copy of a software solutions, you could be subject to nasty fines that are easily avoidable. All it takes is an unexpected audit to completely drown your chances of success.

If your organization finds it difficult to handle software licenses, we’re here to tell you that there’s an easier way to manage your business’s mission-critical software solutions. With our remote management and maintenance solution, we can manually update your business’s crucial systems, making sure that they remain secure from potential threats. We can also arrange your software licenses in a way which lets you update them at around the same time. This way, you’ll never miss a critical update or software license renewal ever again.

For more information, give us a call at (270) 282-4926.

Most modern businesses need access to crucial parts of their infrastructure in order to keep operations moving forward. For example, your building’s electricity is necessary to power your technology, and without an Internet connection, you could be losing out on hours of potential productivity. What can you do to minimize downtime and make the best out of a bad situation?